Last week, Chechen Boy-President Ramzan Kadyrov announced it was time “to end the parade of regional presidents,” saying that “a unified state should have only one president.” He has also suggested that there should be no presidents of banks, charities, sports organizations — no presidents at all. “Soon there will be no more positions called president in Chechnya,” his aide told Interfax.

Moscow has supported this move, as have other regional presidents, as has The Moscow Diaries.

And so I propose we brainstorm on some names. Names like “head of the republic,” “father of the nation,” and “imam” have been bandied about but, let’s face it, those are boring names, names whose vanilla-ness does not fit a boisterous manchild like Ramzan.

I say, we can do better. We can call him “sahib,” for example, or “The Little Prince,” or even “Big Poppa.”

Leave your suggestions below, and we’ll vote on them in a subsequent post.

@I’d go with “The Chechenbashi” but first he has to rename the month of February after his mother.

Might be. Kadyrov as much loves his mom (and his sis, for whom he once has seized a police station in Dagestan to free her and beat up those who dared to detain) as he disrespects all the other women (possibly including his wife, or rather wives).

Thus, on Thursday, February 5 the republic’s minister of external relations, national policy, press and information Shamsail Saraliyev announced that Chechnya will soon have televisions, mobile phones and computers marked with the brand name “Aymani”. For the uninitiated it should be pointed out that Aymani is the name of the Chechen president’s mother. And since the production of high-quality electronic equipment it is not a simple task, it will be taken care of in friendly South Korea.
(…)
And last but not least, the President’s mother Aymani also plays a part in the affairs of state. She is the head of the Akhmat Kadyrov Regional Charitable Foundation, a body not lacking in funds and run in grand style, often functioning as the sponsor of all kinds of investment projects and programs connected with the republic’s reconstruction and development.

“Aymani Kadyrov was elected president of the Regional Public Fund named after her husband, Akhmat Kadyrov, the first president of Chechnya and Hero of Russia, who was killed in May 2004. President Vladimir Putin awarded her the Order of Friendship in April 2008.”

@Julia, his “poppa” was murdered by Islamist terrorists. Can’t you show even a little sensitivity?

According to Lil’ Kadyrov (Hero of Russia), Big Kadyrov (Hero of Russia) was wasted by Sulim Yamadayev (Hero of Russia). Sulim is now wasted in Dubai, and the internationally (Interpol warrant) wanted for this is Ramzan’s cousin Adam Delimkhanov (Hero of Russia).

Mark,
I don’t remember any of the characters in the movie – not even the (Russian) Major Kozlova – eating pelmeni … On the other hand, the reason for “wrapping the meat into the dough” in this case was that I did not want to win Julia’s competition 🙂

That’s pretty funny! Obviously, it was a deliberate distortion of “plenipotentiary”, but it’s funny you should mention the reason for pelmeni being made the way they are. I learned on Jennifer Eremeeva’s blog ( http://dividingmytime.typepad.com/ ) that the original reason for wrapping the meat was so that wild animals would not smell it and be attracted to the person who was carrying it. It’s funny, the neat things you learn by accident.

Dividing My Time has a lot of great traditional Russian recipes on it, and I like to cook. Pelmeni in this case appeared as “Siberian Dumplings”.

It’s one thing to laugh and joke about a homicidal maniac after he’s been deposed from power and suitably punished for his crimes. To do so while he retains power and continues those crimes only serves to advance his ends by getting folks to take him less seriously and give him more slack.

There’s only one nickname which suits this monster, and that is “The Murderer of Natalia Estemirova.” And that’s nothing to joke about at all.

…said the Princess of Shockingly Bad Taste. So now Kadyrov killed Estemirova? I don’t disagree that he’s the prime suspect. But I’m just asking because before, you see, you said it was the Kremlin and the FSB.

You’re a god-damned liar. There is not one single word in that text suggesting that Kadyrov is not responsible for Estemirova’s murder.

We have never claimed that Kadyrov personally pulled the trigger, but simply that he gave the orders, and he quite possibly gave those orders to KGB agents with the explicit approval of Vladimir Putin, WHO PERSONALLY APPOINTED KADYROV TO POWER.

Your stupidity and dishonesty know absolutely no bounds, you’re a ridiculous little neo-Soviet gorilla. How can you possibly admit that Kadyrov is the prime suspect and yet suggest that the Kremlin and the FSB are blameless when Kadyrov was put in power BY THOSE FORCES and they are doing NOTHING to reign him in?

Moreover, you have TOTALLY ignored the point of this comment, i.e., whether it is appropriate to laugh and joke about a murderer. You change the subject because you know you are wrong. How can you possibly admit that Kadyrov is the prime suspect and then laugh and joke about his nicknames? Are you really as uncivilized as that?

.. I’m trying to get a joint probability estimate that this is exactly what Mark described in his “siberian pelmeny” story… and that you did not miss the warning, Julia. So far the estimate is around 0.666 (66.6%)

Will you make me quote you? Fine; “Meanwhile, Estemirova’s real killers run free, as do those (perhaps the same FSB agents) who took out Politkovskaya and Starovoitova, all after proud KGB spy Putin took power. It is totally obvious that a conspiracy to murder these public figures exists, and equally obvious that the Kremlin has no intentions of getting to the bottom of it because the Kremlin itself lies at the center. ”

Let’s break it down. “Meanwhile, Estemirova’s real killers run free, as do those (perhaps the same FSB agents) who took out Politkovskaya and Starovoitova…”. The insertion of “the same FSB agents” clearly implies it was FSB agents who “took out” Politkovskaya, Starovoitova and Estimirova – there is absolutely no other interpretation, nor any reason to include the phrase unless that is what you meant to imply. There is also no evidence at all that the FSB “took out” Politkovskaya. Extension of the closing sentence results in “It is totally obvious that a conspiracy to murder these public figures exists, and equally obvious that the Kremlin has no intentions of getting to the bottom of it because the Kremlin itself lies at the center (of a conspiracy to murder Politkovskaya, Starovoitova and Estimirova). ” Again, there is no other possible interpretation.

There’s not one single word in my post that suggests Kadyrov is not responsible, either – you were very careful not to say, “There’s not one single word in that text that says the FSB and the Kremlin were jointly responsible”, because that’s exactly what you did say. Ramzan Kadyrov would appear totally at home in a Tupac Shakur video – he’s a thug, and I have no problem believing he was involved in killing Estimirova. That’s not what I said. I said that YOU said the Kremlin and the FSB were responsible, and you DID say that.

You are every bit as nutty as your reputation promises if you believe Estimirova represented such an enormous threat to the state that the combined resources of the FSB, the Kremlin and Kadyrov had to get their heads together – fast – to “take her out” so they could stop her “blabbing what she knew”. Dream on; it probably took less coordination than that to coordinate the military response to Georgia’s invasion. What did Estimirova know? Something that would bring down the government? Hardly. It probably wouldn’t have even brought down Kadyrov – but if it did, so what? How irreplaceable is he? She was a gentle, determined and committed journalist who worked mostly on human-rights issues, and she just didn’t know anything worth having her killed. On the other hand, Kadyrov would be quite likely to kill anyone simply for annoying him. He certainly wouldn’t require the go-ahead and physical support of the Kremlin to “take out” one woman journalist who didn’t even carry a sharp stick, never mind a gun. Stop living in a James Bond screenplay, and use your head for something other than keeping the brim of your hat warm on the inside, how about? If the FSB and the Kremlin swaggered around “taking out” everyone who represented the slightest threat, Bill Browder and Robert Amsterdam would be dead, too.

I don’t give a tin weasel if you did post an “editorial” blaming Kadyrov – if I were disposed to search through your material, there might well be one where you blamed it on Obama, or the Maytag repairman. When it comes to blame you tend to slather it on with a generous hand, and an extra dollop for Putin every time you can fit him in. And you do that because you dress suppositions as facts, and don’t bother with trivialities like “evidence” or “motive”.

You’re not on your own blog, where you can just delete inconvenient realities.

@Ramzan Kadyrov would appear totally at home in a Tupac Shakur video – he’s a thug, and I have no problem believing he was involved in killing Estimirova. That’s not what I said. I said that YOU said the Kremlin and the FSB were responsible, and you DID say that.

What a strange way of thinking. Something like:

“Doctor Oskar Dirlewanger would appear totally at home in a Dr Hannibal Lecter-style thriller – he’ was a monster, and I have no problem believing he was involved in killing of Josef Kaminsky’s son from this memorial. But how would one say the Reich Chancellery and the SS gang were responsible? An outrage!”

The Kremlin mafiosi are just as responsible by any murder by Kadyrov’s gunmen as it is responsible by any murder by the gunmen serving under any other Russian warlords (from Shamanov to Yamadayev). Less then for the murders ordered directly by “the president” (“prime minister”), though.

@What did Estimirova know? Something that would bring down the government? Hardly.

Yes. Thousands and thousands and thousands of murders (detailed Chechnya: Chronicle of Violence by Estermirova and Memorial) is not something that might take down “the government” in Russia.

One more too.

@If the FSB and the Kremlin swaggered around “taking out” everyone who represented the slightest threat, Bill Browder and Robert Amsterdam would be dead, too.

And then you “forget” they brutally murdered thousands of people for no reason at all, “by accident”, or for their furniture and golden teeth (like through their OMON “law enforcers” in the places like Novye Aldi).

People, people! Please don’t argue with La BlatherPhobe. “She” is not a real person, with whom you can enjoy a rational political debate, but rather a computer-generated entity. Engineered in an American imperialist think-tank by clever but misguided ex-Soviet dissidents, “she”, or should I say “it”, was programmed to troll the internet like a toxic virus, spewing random illogical invectives on various blogs. My proof? If “she” were a real person, then we would have seen “her” being interviewed on television.

Maybe you have. Perhaps she’s really Anne Coulter. Or Gilda Radner. No – scratch that; Gilda Radner’s dead, God rest her comical soul. Or, remember the incredibly ditzy but partisan Katy Abram, who was interviewed on the subject of the healthcare debate armed with lots of “facts”, but turned out not to know much of anything, including her own family income (or so she claimed)? Maybe she’s really Katy Abram, who certainly seemed to hate Obama enough without being able to say why.

I can see where you’re going with this, though, and I recommend you finish your first novel about steely-eyed Putin the proud KGB stud and his meaty-thighed mistress before you start a mystery novel, because you’re going to get confused with plot overlap.

.. You don’t find it intriguing that a site aptly named “Russophobe” is in fact devoted to publishing the views of Russian “opposition”? One may say that the logic and style are similar to this .
That’s why there was no TV interview – imagine how shocking it would be to see a familiar face there 🙂
Fell free to use this in the romantic story you were going to write – no credits needed: )

@Do you actually believe that Kadyrov works for the Kremlin? This entry is about how he is making fun of Putin.

Uh, what? Kadyrov would never, EVER make fun of Putin, he is not only his master, he is actually his new father. And you should know what kind of figure was his dad for him – if not him, Ramzan would be nobody. And if not Putin in 2004 (se the above video I posted), Ramzan would still be a smalltime gang leader with no respect even among many of his subordinates (not to mention the other Daddy’s henchmen, some of whom Ramzan killed after 2004, like he did with Baisarov in Moscow).

So when Ramzan says that without Putin “there would be no Chechnya now”, he means there would be no Kadyrovland. And so when the Hero of Russia calls Putin “the most holy man”, he is serious. When he says Putin is “a beauty”, he is serious. When he organizes a mass rally in Grozny for Putin to become president-for-life, he is serious. He’s always very, very serious about Putin.

Also besides these he killed openly or semi-openly (like the Yamadayevs), he arrenged “accidents” for many of them: soon Dudayev (no, not this one) died in an “electrical fire”, Gazimagomadov (first Chechen OMON commander, used to clash with Ramzan’s men) died in a “road accident” (and was replaced by Ramzan’s loyalist), etc. Alkhanov (the Inter-Kadyrov puppet president) and Kakiyev simply surrendered, one now lives in Moscow and the other one in Khankala. All of this of course with Putin’s knowledge and blessing.

“The man [Putin] who sat in the Kremlin trusted us completely. Without [Ahmad] Kadyrov he could not have done this. But without Putin, Kadyrov wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” Kadyrov went on.

“I owe Putin my life,” he said. “If I forget that, I am no longer a man. When I have had terribly difficult times in my life, he has helped me. He is for me the most saintly person – wherever he is, whatever he is, be it a locksmith or a combine harvester driver…”

“Isa’s brother, Ruslan was a prominent opponent of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who was initially suspected of being linked to the death by the Yamadayev family, but has denied any involvement in the killing.”

I always found him one of the more rational commenters on La Russophobe – at least in the sense that he wasn’t belligerently rude, like many, and mostly seemed to be just persistently pressing his viewpoint. He sure does have a tunnel-vision thing about Chechnya, though. No matter what the subject is, he can only stay on it long enough to say, “Yup, yup, I agree…” before he’s off with another flurry of posts about Chechnya. Like I said, though, not an ignorant pig like some. Kind of a nice guy sometimes, really.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov announced recently that there should be only one “president” in Russia and therefore he was renouncing his own claim to that title. Other leaders of North Caucasus republics then announced their intention of following Kadyrov’s example. North Ossetia, though, was ahead of the curve — about two years ago, the forward-looking republic already turned its president into a “head of the republic.”

The federal bureaucrats of the ruling United Russia party have hurried to support Kadyrov’s initiative. After all, it is a lot easier to mobilize regional lawmakers for another show of servility than it is to, for instance, fix all the mistakes in the federal Forestry Code. But there is something positive in Kadyrov’s proposal: it makes the real situation in Russia clearer.

“Austria must signal that it enacts the rule of law. We need an indictment and international arrest warrant for Ramzan Kadyrov,” he said.

In a bizarre twist, Kaltenbrunner’s lawyer Mayer said he would ask for Kadyrov to be called as a witness so that the Chechen leader could confirm his innocence. “Maybe he will come,” he was quoted as saying by Die Presse.